The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

I pull away to glare at him.

He holds up his hands in surrender. “It wasn’t meant to be a trick question.”

“You’re the one that’s going to rule,” I remind him.

“No,” he says, watching the other dancers. “I don’t think I will.”

I suppose he’s been avoiding the throne for most of his life. I think of cowering beneath the bed in his room during the Battle of the Serpent and shove the memory from my mind. I don’t want to think about back then. Just as I do not want to think about how, despite Hyacinthe’s warnings, I am ready to eat out of the prince’s hand as tamely as a dove.

It’s too easy. I’m hungry for kindness. Hungry for attention. I want and want and want.

“We ought to eat something,” I say. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Although he must know it is an excuse, he releases me from his arms.

We wend through the crowd to a banquet table laden with delicacies. Oak takes a tart filled with golden faerie fruit and cuts it in half, giving a portion to me. Though I was the one who suggested food, I realize how hungry I am only after taking the first bite. Self-consciously, I pour a glass of water from the pitcher set out to mix with the wine and gulp that down.

Oak pours himself wine, undiluted.

“Will you tell me how you came to be living . . .” He stops, as if trying to find the words. “As you were.”

I remember the care I’d given that he not know. How could I explain the way time seemed to slip from my fingers, the way I became incrementally more detached, more unable to reach out a hand to take anything I wanted? I will not allow him to pity me any more than he does.

“You could have come to see me,” he says. “If you needed something.”

I laugh at that. “You?”

He frowns down at me with his amber eyes. “Why not?”

The enormity of the reasons catches in my mouth. He’s a prince of Elfhame, and I am the disgraced child of traitors. He befriends everyone, from the troll guard at the entrance to all those Tiernan mentioned back in the High Court, while I have spent years alone in the woods. But most of all, because he could have asked his sister to allow me to stay on the Shifting Isles and didn’t.

“Perhaps I wanted to save that favor you still owe me,” I say.

He laughs at that. Oak liking me is as silly as the sun liking a storm, but that doesn’t stop my desire for it.

Me, with my sharp teeth and chilly skin. It’s absurd. It’s grotesque.

And yet, the way he looks at me, it almost seems possible. I imagine that’s his plan. He wants me to be charmed by him so that I will stay by his side and do what he asks of me. No doubt he believes that a little attention and a few smiles will be all it requires of him. He expects me to be as malleable as one of the ladies of the Court.

So much of me wants to give in and pretend with him that it makes me hot with rage.

If he wants to charm me, the least I can do is make it cost him. I won’t settle for smiles and a dance. I am going to call his bluff. I am going to prove to myself—prove to us both—that his flirtation isn’t sincere. I lean toward him, expecting him to unconsciously move away. To be repulsed. But he only watches me curiously.

As I draw closer, his eyes widen a little.

“Wren,” he whispers. I am not sure if it’s a warning or not. I hate that I don’t know.

At every moment, I expect him to flinch or pull back as I put one hand on his shoulder, then go up on my toes, and kiss him.

This is ridiculous. Kissing him is profane. It gives me all the horrible satisfaction of smashing a crystal goblet.

It’s quick. Just the press of my dry mouth against his lips. A brief sense of softness, the warmth of breath, and then I pull away, my heart thrumming with fear, with the expectation that he will be disgusted.

With the certainty that I have well and truly punished him for trying to flirt with me.

The angry, feral part of me feels so close to the surface that I can almost scent its blood-clotted fur. I want to lick the scratches I made.

He doesn’t look alarmed, though. He’s studying my face, as though he’s trying to work something out.

After a moment, his eyes close, pale lashes against his cheek, and he dips forward to press his mouth to mine again. He goes slower, one of his hands cupping my head. A shivery feeling courses down my spine, a flush coming up on my skin.

When he draws back, he is not wearing his usual complicated smile. Instead, he looks as though someone just slapped him. I wonder if a kiss from me is like being clawed on the cheek.

Did he force himself to go through with it? For the sake of keeping me on this quest? For the sake of his father and his plans?

I thought to punish him, but all I have succeeded in doing is punishing myself.

I take a breath and let it out slowly. My gaze slides from his, and I spot Tiernan, coming toward us. I am not certain how much he saw, but I do not want to hear anything he might have to say just now. “Your pardon,” I tell Oak. “But I’ve had enough dancing. I think I will take my leave.”

The corner of his mouth quirks. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

I hate the way those words make my skin flush.

I head into the crowd, hoping he will lose sight of me. Cursing myself for being foolish. Cursing him for addling my thoughts.